I have been wanting to ask about this for a long time. I was also a bit confused of where to put it, and I hope this is the right place

So, It usually happens when I wake up in the middle of the night. I gonna use last night as an example... I woke up at 12 PM last night after going to sleep at 9 PM. I kept tossing and turning and finding it a pain to get to sleep. So I started just relaxing when I finally got comfy and started drifting off. And then i had this really weird kind of Daydream thing. I knew I was lying down on my bed but I ignored it as if I was having a normal dream. It was if I was half awake and half asleep. My daydream was that I entered this random hut and saw a floating mask. Curious, I walked up to him. I started seeing it in third person as if I was controlling it like a game ( This third Person seemed most like Animal crossing, which I had played before trying to get back to sleep again after a long time of tossing and turning ). Then the mask chased me and I ran outside, opened a random door, and saw the mask following me. Just before it got to me I snapped out of this kind of Daydream, a little sweaty. I mean, the mask was really scary with all these dents and marks and mean glaring eyes on it. It wasn't a pretty sight. However, while i had this Daydream thing I was totally aware I was just laying in my bed, just like a normal daydream. Daydreams I can usually control but this one was like a dream, but I was not asleep.I don't know how to explain it but it was't a daydream OR a dream. It was kind of the two mixed together. Putting it in words is so hard to explain, so I was hoping someone has had the same kind of thing.

There is also something a bit similar I get if I wake up in the middle of the night and I really badly can't sleep. My mind starts wondering into those daydream things again or I start thinking of the most weird things. I don't control my thoughts, I just think about them. And then when I kind of get myself together I those thoughts seem like the most random of gibberish, but when I was thinking about them they seemed to make perfect sense. It's the weirdest of things.

So I hope someone can relate. I must sound really weird to those who haven't experienced it! Lol!

DreamyRoamer wrote:There is also something a bit similar I get if I wake up in the middle of the night and I really badly can't sleep. My mind starts wondering into those daydream things again or I start thinking of the most weird things. I don't control my thoughts, I just think about them. And then when I kind of get myself together I those thoughts seem like the most random of gibberish, but when I was thinking about them they seemed to make perfect sense. It's the weirdest of things.

This happens to me all the time. It is the onset of sleep after I WBTB and am awake, yet my body starts to sleep. My mind thinks about one thing, then moves on to the next, and the next and the next, and they all seem connected somehow. When I snap out of it, I realize just how disjointed and random the thoughts and images where, but at the time, they somehow made sense. Sometimes I try to write down what I saw or felt or thought, but it is very hard because they are abstract with no plot or meaning.

I've had a few lucid day dreams in the morning. I know I'm in bed, I can even hear real-life sounds entering into my dream, and yet I can see and walk around and interact with the dream world. They are not as vivid, and enthralling in my experience, but if they persist and you ignore your waking self it would become more vivid and enthralling.

HAGART wrote:This happens to me all the time. It is the onset of sleep after I WBTB and am awake, yet my body starts to sleep. My mind thinks about one thing, then moves on to the next, and the next and the next, and they all seem connected somehow. When I snap out of it, I realize just how disjointed and random the thoughts and images where, but at the time, they somehow made sense. Sometimes I try to write down what I saw or felt or thought, but it is very hard because they are abstract with no plot or meaning.

I have found a very useful website that seems to answer a bit of my question for those with the same thing. Here are a few paragraphs from it:

Hypnagogia is the experience you have when you are either falling asleep (but not quite asleep) or waking up (but not quite awake). Other terms for it include: “visions of half-sleep”, “the borderland of sleep”, “half-dream state” and “dreamlets”. The hypnagogic state can be characterised by many sensory experiences. These experiences can range from the subtle and vague, to the downright intense and hallucinatory. It can include visions: seeing colours, shapes, faces, landscapes and other three-dimensional imagery. Unlike dreams, however, these sights have no narrative to them; that is, they do not tell a meaningful story. I experience this all the time and it usually consists of interacting with people, but with no context to it. A lot of the time, the visual experience is nightmarish, but because I am not in a deep sleep I can open my eyes and I am fully awake.

Our thought processes can also be affected. Thought processes at the edge of sleep are completely different from the thought processes we have when we are fully awake. Hypnagogic thinking is said to be characterised by more openness, illogic, nonsense, heightened suggestibility (readiness to believe something), and a more fluid association of ideas (connecting ideas in a more free-flow and unique way). Personally, I usually experience this when I've been falling asleep watching a documentary or when I've been writing or reading about a difficult subject before going to sleep. In the hypnagogic state I am either writing about the subject or thinking about it in a radically different way. During the experience, it seems as if I am making genuine progress with a problem, without being able to arrive at a solution. It's like wrestling with hundreds of ideas and being stuck in a kind of loop at the same time.

If you want to read more this is the website's link: http://www.samwoolfe.com/2013/05/hypnagogia-half-awake-half-asleep.html

I came across it when I was looking for something to help a bit, and it seems to explain it a bit.

It's hard to put into words, but that's what it is like. It's hard to explain "abstract thought with no solution", but that's what it is like. And sometimes I get short, but vivid, 'dreamlets' that I snap out of. Then go back in to that state again, and it can take a few tries to fully sleep.

When this does happen though I tend to get lucid dreams close to the beginning of the dream. I think it's because I am aware during the onset of sleep and hypnogogia, something we usually get lost and entranced in and never even notice for most of our lives for the average person.

It's hard to put into words, but that's what it is like. It's hard to explain "abstract thought with no solution", but that's what it is like. And sometimes I get short, but vivid, 'dreamlets' that I snap out of. Then go back in to that state again, and it can take a few tries to fully sleep.

When this does happen though I tend to get lucid dreams close to the beginning of the dream. I think it's because I am aware during the onset of sleep and hypnogogia, something we usually get lost and entranced in and never even notice for most of our lives for the average person.

Yes, I agree. I get exactly the same, expect from having Lucid Dreams. Well, I have tiny mini ones, but they are not really the full thing as my dreams are blurred.

I also got some weird information from my brother, when I was talking to him about this. He said he gets this when we awakens in the morning and it's, "The happiest moments he has in the morning". I asked why, because I find the thoughts quite distracting a confusing and it takes me off sleeping, and he said, "I don't know why, I don't really remember what I think of. Just random thoughts and being happy". I'm really curious to know what it is he gets, I certainly don't feel happy when I get it.

Was it before sleep, or after sleep? (what you experienced)There is a difference between hypnagogia and hynopompia Those are the states of mind, entering and returning from sleep.

They are similar, but coming out of sleep is far more peaceful in my opinion, and my last memories are of the dream world, even if I don't fully remember it at the time. But going into sleep, we wrestle with our days dilemmas and problems and that's when I get the unsolvable, abstract conundrums. But coming out of sleep is a different story and those random thoughts aren't so bewildering and feels more natural and pleasant and peaceful.

HAGART wrote:Was it before sleep, or after sleep? (what you experienced)There is a difference between hypnagogia and hynopompia Those are the states of mind, entering and returning from sleep.

They are similar, but coming out of sleep is far more peaceful in my opinion, and my last memories are of the dream world, even if I don't fully remember it at the time. But going into sleep, we wrestle with our days dilemmas and problems and that's when I get the unsolvable, abstract conundrums. But coming out of sleep is a different story and those random thoughts aren't so bewildering and feels more natural and pleasant and peaceful.

I find it's when I awaken in the middle of sleep for no reason and I'm trying to go back to sleep. I just can't because all these random thoughts distract me. I start getting sweaty and a little distressed. It's like when you can't sleep and you feel like your bed is boiling by all the tossing and turning and my mind just has enough and I get the random thoughts. I only start getting to sleep when I get up out of bed for a while, or start doing something like reading or going on my Ipod.

Edit - I actually just found something quite useful. Another page that explains what I get ( Actually amazing myself by how much I'm learning today lol I'm not usually the one to be finding all these websites) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_inertia

So it's more hypnogogia and trying to go to sleep and not the other one.I get that restlessness too sometimes, and what I do is get out of bed, get some water, splash some cold water in my face, urinate if necessary, and then go back to bed. Then I just relax and day dream and let my thoughts exhaust themselves, and then I have nothing to think about anymore and I roll over and sleep. If it takes more than an hour, I get up, and watch TV and say, forget about it! (I'll be tired for a day, or I may nap later if I can, but with a little lack of REM sleep the rebound kicks in and tomorrow is another day).

REM rebound effect: If you lack dreams one night, they will come back twice as strong the next. I knew this for a while without even knowing a term for it.

Your night time wakefulness happens to me too sometimes. Not too often, but that's how I deal with it. Meditation and self relaxation my help too, but I am unfamiliar with that, but it makes sense though.

EDIT: I READ YOUR EDIT: I just read the article and it's a quick read. We all know what that's like some days! I just can't seem to wake up sometimes and keep going back to sleep in the morning, and yet at 4 in the morning I was wide awake! I feel more awake in the middle of the night after waking from the first stages of sleep, than in the mornings after REM! Even when I am lucid in the morning, I feel more awake in the dream than I do after I awaken from it. It must have to do with the physical body chemistry or something and awareness of it, which I don't have in lucid dreams.